1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a machine and a method for the machining, in particular scoring, of sheet-like articles, and to a printed circuit board which is intended to be machined in a machine of this type and by means of a method of this type.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Known machines for the scoring of printed circuit boards have a clamping device movable back and forth and possessing two clamps. Each of these clamps is assigned a centering pin. The printed circuit boards to be scored conventionally have a square or rectangular shape and are provided with a centering hole in each corner region. Before a number of identical printed circuit boards are ever machined, the clamps are set in such a way that the spacing of the centering pins corresponds to the spacing of the centering holes which are present in the two corner regions adjacent to one of the edges of the printed circuit boards. For machining, in each case a printed circuit board is inserted into the clamps in such a way that the centering pins come into engagement with the corresponding centering holes. By moving the clamping device back and forth in the machining direction and by displacing the scoring tool in a direction at right angles to the machining direction after each stroke of the clamping device, the printed circuit board is given a plurality of scores in a first direction. This operation is repeated until all the printed circuit boards are scored in this direction. During the processing of rectangular printed circuit boards, the clamps now have to be reset in such a way that the spacing of the centering pins corresponds to the spacing of the centering holes arranged in the corner regions which are adjacent to an edge running at right angles to the first-mentioned edge. The printed circuit boards already machined in one direction are then rotated in succession through 90.degree., once again inserted into the clamps and scored in the other direction. A disadvantage of these known machines is that the output of scored printed circuit boards takes place in batches, the printed circuit boards being inserted into and extracted from the clamping device either by hand or by means of automatic loading and unloading mechanisms. For the subsequent machining of the scored printed circuit boards, continuous output is often desired, for example in order to avoid intermediate storage. The known scoring machines cannot satisfy this requirement.